Bloom requirements for container transportation and throughput at container ports are continuously growing in the world, which have newer and higher requirements for devices for container handling technique as well as process for loading/unloading techniques. Therefore, it is a pressing demand for developing and designing devices for container handling with high efficiency so as to meet requirements of scale, high-speed and automation of container transportation of wharf.
Since the 1990s, with growth of global economy and trade, freight volume of containers steeply rises. With promotion of strong transportation requirements and good benefit of technique and economy, hi-tech technique for crane mechanism of containers, particularly automatic control technique, has fully developed. However, the handling systems of the container wharf used at present have the following deficiencies:
Generally speaking, a container wharf can be divided into two parts: front of wharf (quayside) and rear of wharf (container yard). The container crane at front of wharf is used to hoist containers from a container ship and the container yard at the rear of the wharf is used to stack the containers. There are two schemes for the arrangement of the containers stacked on the yard: One is that the containers on the yard are arranged in the same direction of containers on the ship, it should be noted that the direction of the containers used here and below refers to the long axis of the containers. The other scheme of the arrangement of the containers stacked on the yard is that the containers on the yard are arranged in a different direction of containers on the ship. In recent years, in order to increase usage of crane at the container yard and to enhance work efficiency at the container yard, the later scheme is more and more used, that is: the containers on the yard are arranged in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the containers on the ship.
At present, the transportation between front and rear of wharf is achieved by flat carriers driven by gas engine. That is, for the unloading process, the containers are lifted from the ship to the flat carrier by a quayside container crane, then transported to the container yard by the flat carriers, and hoisted from the flat carriers and put on the yard by a yard crane, and for the loading process, the containers are lifted to the from the yard to the flat carrier by a yard crane, then transported to the position under the quayside container crane by the flat carriers, and hoisted from the flat carriers and loaded on the ship by a quayside container crane. However, in the above process, the following problems will arise:
1) The flat carriers travels freely on road and are difficult to be in a precise direction as the carriers traveling on tracks, which will cause difficulties for cranes hoisting and will affect the handling speed;
2) The flat carriers need to be driven by persons, which is a disadvantage for complete automation;
3) The flat carriers are driven by gas engine that produces great pollution.
Thus, to address the above shortcomings, the object of the present invention is to provide an efficient arrangement scheme of a container wharf for transporting, loading, unloading and stacking containers efficiently.